


Yesterday's Snow, Tomorrow's Spring

by alicekittridge



Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Mild Angst, POV Third Person, Present Tense, only slightly tho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:01:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: There's a Christmas party. Dani needs a plus one. It's not as simple as it is on paper.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Comments: 2
Kudos: 38





	Yesterday's Snow, Tomorrow's Spring

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, long time no fic. I took a break from Bly to work on original fiction but came back to this because it's season-appropriate. Thank you all, as always, for reading xx
> 
> \---  
> Tags will be updated with the next chapter.

**T** he invitation is a single, thick page of expensive stationery, the font a pleasing, pointed serif that Dani cannot name. At the bottom is the company’s logo, framed by holly leaves, and by which Henry Wingrave has scrawled a hasty signature. It’s a formal event. And she’s “encouraged to bring a plus one.” Dani can imagine him saying something along the lines of, “Perhaps a friend you’ve made in Bly?” The first emotion she’s aware of is shock. No one so ordinary is usually invited to company functions. Typically, the invitation is extended for club members only. The second is puzzlement. _Why me?_ Is it an excuse to get her away from the children? Or to offer her a different job?

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Jamie’s voice sounds on the other end of the kitchen. She’s reaching into the cabinet by the stove for the shortbread cookie tin. The teapot sits on a lit burner. Dani hadn’t heard her come in, resulting in a jump of surprise. “Not tryin’ to scare your socks off. Honest,” Jamie says apologetically.

“It’s uh… an invitation.” She walks to the stove, holds the sheet out to Jamie. “Some Christmas party of Mr. Wingrave’s.”

Jamie’s mouth forms the words as she reads. “‘Encouraged to bring a plus one?’” she says. “Have you asked Owen yet?”

Dani laughs. “I’m sure he’d rather teach the kids baking chemistry than go to a Christmas party. Hannah, too.” She chews her lip, feeling the palms of her hands become clammy. “Would… _you_ want to…?”

Jamie looks shocked, at first, as if nobody’s ever asked her anywhere except to something gardening-related, but then her face breaks into a smile, bright as summer sun. “That’s awfully brave of you, Poppins.”

“You don’t have to—”

“‘Course I’ll go with you, if it’ll make it tolerable.” Her eyes travel the length of Dani’s body. “Have you got somethin’ to wear?”

“Do you?” Dani says, returning the once-over. “Jeans won’t cut it.”

“Might be I do. Won’t be any funeral suit, either.” The words are almost a promise. Dani’s mind is already racing with possibilities, though she thinks it’ll be odd, seeing Jamie in anything other than jeans and old shirts, overalls and coveralls and boots. Jamie asks, “Is it tonight?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Gives us plenty of time to decide on an outfit.”

The kettle whistles. Jamie makes herself a small cup of tea, stirring in a bit of milk and sugar after the tea has steeped for two minutes. Even after careful observation, Dani is still incapable of adopting the proper tea-brewing technique. “You’re just too fuckin’ American for this, Poppins,” Jamie had said one afternoon. “Might as well accept it.”

Jamie whistles a few bars of a Blondie song when she exits, the charm of it making Dani’s heart twist itself into a pleasant knot.

—

Dani had not come to Bly with many of her possessions. It was only what she could fit into two bags and a red backpack. Consequently, it leaves her with very little choice in the way of dresses. There’s a shell pink one that reminds her of her engagement party, one she hadn’t had the heart to fold and give away. She slides it to the other side of the wardrobe, out of view. The only other outfit is a black cocktail dress with frills at the end, the same one she’d nearly worn to Owen’s mother’s funeral. She takes it down from the hanger and slips it on, not bothering with the infernal zipper just yet. She pulls on black tights onto her left leg and leaves her right one bare, shuffling in front of the ovular mirror to see which would go better. If she didn’t wear them, Jamie may make another comment about scandalizing the other guests. If she did, Dani could imagine Jamie’s eyes running over them. She wonders if Jamie would ponder what her legs felt like underneath the rough, stretchy material. The thought makes her warm.

“Tights it is, then.”

She pulls them on fully. Zips the zipper on her dress as best she can, until her lack of flexibility demands otherwise. With a sigh, Dani cracks open her bedroom door and calls, “Flora!”

Small feet pound up the stairs. Flora, dressed in trousers and a play-shirt, skids to an excited halt in front of the door. “Yes?”

“I could use your help with something. Got a minute?”

“For you, Miss Clayton, I have five.” Flora steps inside. “Oh. Are you going somewhere?”

“Your Uncle Henry invited me to a Christmas party in London.”

“Will it be dreadfully boring?”

“I hope not.” She beckoned for Flora to follow her. “Will you zip up the rest for me? You can get on my bed.”

Flora takes her shoes off before she stands on the bed. She tugs the zipper up until it meets the end of the teeth. “There,” she says. “May I see how it looks, Miss Clayton?”

Dani makes a show of twirling in the dress. Flora laughs. Says, “You look pretty in it. Jamie will think so, too.”

“Jamie?” Dani says.

“She looks at you quite a lot, you know.”

Dani blushes. Smiles. “I didn’t.” She clears her throat. “Want to help me pick out a perfume?”

Flora nods enthusiastically, clearly thrilled to be allowed into spaces that are Dani’s. She has her own bathroom, cluttered with towels and toiletries. There aren’t many choices of perfumes, either, just two that she’d brought from home, one that she’d bought herself at a department store in her hometown’s tiny excuse of a mall, and another that’d been an engagement present from Judy—a bottle of Estee Lauder _Beautiful._ She’d bought it in 1986, she’d said, after Dani had opened the box, hoping to use it for some get-together or other but never got the chance. She thought it would suit Dani better because it “smelled like a young woman’s perfume.” Dani takes both from the medicine cabinet, planting herself on the seat of the toilet so that Flora won’t have to lean up so much. Flora takes the bottles and unstoppers them but Dani says, “It’ll be too strong if you smell them like that.”

“How am I supposed to smell them?” Flora says.

“I’ll show you.” Dani takes the department store one first, a cheaper scent called _Rosewater._ “You drop it onto your wrist, right where you feel the pulse.” She points. Lets a single drop fall onto her skin. “Then you rub it for a few seconds,” she says, moving her connected wrists in a few circles. “Now, smell that.”

Flora leans and inhales. “Hmm.”

“What do you think?”

“It’s nice,” she replies. “Not very strong.” She hands Dani the Estee Lauder. “Try this one.”

Dani puts two drops on her right wrist. Rubs those in too and holds her arm out, waiting for Flora’s approval.

“Wow,” Flora says.

“You like that one?”

“Very much.”

Dani nods her approval. “I think we’ve landed on a decision.”

“You’ll smell perfectly splendid.”

Dani smiles. “Thank you. You can run along, if you want, Flora. I better get ready.”

“You’ll call me if there’s anything else, Miss Clayton?”

“Yes ma’am,” Dani says in a Southern accent. She’d learned from Jamie that different accents made Flora laugh.

Properly scented, Dani brushes her hair and pins it into a high bun, keeping it in place with bobby pins. She chooses a pink lipstick. Anything brighter made her look washed out. All that’s left are a short pair of black heels. The seams on the sides are loose and the soles are worn, but Dani assures herself that no one looks at feet, save for the few who bother.

Dani makes her way to the foyer, where she’ll wait for Jamie, who’d promised to ring the bell at five. Hannah, Owen, and the children are there, too, taking a break from tea to see them off.

“You look lovely, dear,” Hannah says.

“Your perfume is really nice,” Miles says, and Flora turns to him and whispers, “I helped pick it.”

“Thank you,” Dani says. “Are you sure you don’t mind—?”

“We’re proper babysitters, I’ll have you know,” Owen says, throwing a wink at the kids. “Strictest in Bly.”

“And neither of us is fond of office parties,” Hannah adds.

I’m sure I’ll see why, Dani thinks, filled briefly with dread at the obligation. The place will be filled with lawyers in their expensive suits drinking their expensive drinks and eating their expensive food, having conversations that neither Dani nor Jamie will understand.

The bell sounds. Five on the dot. Jamie is never late.

Dani is the one who opens the door. She’s met with the sight of Jamie in grey trousers, a white collared shirt that sits a little too loosely on her, and a black suit jacket slung over an elbow. Her hair is also in a bun, though not quite as high as Dani’s. She smells like soap and hair gel.

“Wow,” Dani says, rather pathetically—the words that do come to mind are ones that would spoil the mood.

“Wow yourself,” Jamie returns, repeating the once-over from the day before. She opens her mouth to add a further statement, but Dani swiftly says, in an undertone so that the children won’t hear her curse, “Don’t say a damn thing.”

Jamie holds up her hands.

They tell everyone goodbye. They’re not entirely sure when they’ll get home, as office parties tend to drag on, and the drive to and from London is a little over an hour and a half. Jamie holds the passenger door open for Dani and offers her a hand. Her grip is warm and firm.

“What is it you’re wearin’, Poppins?” Jamie says once she’s buckled into the driver’s seat. “Smells strong.”

“Estee Lauder,” Dani replies.

“Blimey. Where’d you cough up the money for that?”

“It was a gift. From a woman who was almost my mother-in-law.”

Jamie’s face turns serious. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m glad you like it.”

The drive is silent for a while. It isn’t an awkward silence, exactly, but the kind of silence between two people who are becoming comfortable in one another’s presence. Still wondering what to talk about, but knowing they don’t have to talk at all.

“Have you… been to one of these before?” Dani asks eventually, after Jamie has tried and failed to find a suitable station on the radio. Everything is Christmas music.

“Last year,” says Jamie. “Ended up bein’ Rebecca’s plus two. Before that, it was only Lord and Lady Wingrave who went to these bloody things.”

“Are they awful?”

“They’re a good way to drink yourself into a stupor.”

Dani smiles. “Awful, then.”

“Couldn’t be, with the right people,” Jamie says slowly.

“Most things are that way. Awkward family dinners, engagement parties…” Dani trails off, forcing the memories of both to fade into the darkness beyond the window. She continues, “I wish I could’ve met Rebecca. You’ve said good things about her.”

“Think you two would’ve gotten along,” Jamie says. “You’ve got a lot in common. Save for the tragic romance.” She sighs. “Couldn’t really be called a romance, though, could it?”

The story is, like many things, its own ghost. It lies dormant for a while, until it slips through someone’s mouth and comes alive with a whisper. Dani doesn’t know much of the context for the story; it isn’t something that is talked about often around the house, but from the bits and pieces she’s caught, it’s a macabre tragedy. Starts out innocent enough and then morphs into something completely different, like seeing a rose for the first time and being wholly unaware of the thorns lying underneath the silky petals. Peter was that. Just a rose whose thorns got in the way and wouldn’t let go.

“I think,” Dani says, “we share a similar story.”

“Your fiancé didn’t try to kill you,” Jamie says.

“Not in any physical sense. Hiding—no, _repressing_ who you are is its own form of murder. It’s like killing yourself and stuffing your own body inside a dark space so no one ever sees it, and then you let the impostor take over. Fake smiles, fake laughs, fake feelings.” A pause. “He made me do all that. So, in a way, he was my murderer, until I took the knife back.”

“And landed in England,” Jamie says, her tone half-joking.

“Exactly. With the knife in my bag.”

“Well, since you and I are friends, Poppins,” Jamie says, smiling now, and oh, it’s bright, “I’ll help you hide it.”

“I don’t know where. The grounds are pretty small.”

“It’s the small places no one expects to find anythin’.” They laugh, and the bright mood fades a little, back to static. “You’re right, though. About the self-murder. It’s the worst shit.”

There’s a story there, Dani thinks, her curiosity piquing, but tonight is too soon for something that long. Months still lie ahead, a whole winter and a spring; it can take its time.


End file.
